


True Mastery

by natsuzamaki



Category: Naruto
Genre: Child Abuse, Civilian Sakura, F/M, Good Orochimaru (Naruto), Good Uchiha Sasuke, Itachi trains Sasuke, Naruto Sasuke and Kakashi make up team 7, Sakura is not a ninja, Sexual Abuse, Shuriken Master Sasuke, Smart Uzumaki Naruto, Strong Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:33:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26610730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natsuzamaki/pseuds/natsuzamaki
Summary: When Minato sealed half of the Kyuubi in himself, he didn't think that he could contact Naruto through the seal. Upon discovering that  property of the seal. On a fluke, Itachi gives Sasuke some training in shurikenjutsu, and is awed at Sasuke's natural talent for it. Sakura Haruno is a civilian, with an abusive father. What could go wrong.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi/Mitarashi Anko, Hyuuga Hinata/Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Itachi/Uchiha Izumi
Kudos: 28





	1. Prologue

Minato Namikaze. Acclaimed as the Yellow Flash of Konoha throughout the world. The fastest shinobi, the Fourth Hokage, the one who subdued the Nine-Tailed Fox, all of these were names he was known by in the mortal realm. Where he was currently, however, he was known by only one name.

The Stalker.

Before my lady readers start cursing at him (or me, whichever is easier), let me explain. He had no desire to stalk ladies. Kushina Uzumaki was the only woman for him. The person he was stalking was still in the mortal realm. His son, Naruto Uzumaki. Minato would pay attention to what his son was doing from beyond the clouds. He often berated himself for not being there for him.

You see, Minato Namikaze was dead.

Being dead certainly had its perks and downsides. The Fourth Hokage Minato would have seen the perks. But the Minato who saw his son get beaten up, bullied, almost murdered, and generally uncared for, well, he, not so much. Freedom from hunger and thirst was just another way of saying ‘No Ramen’. But it also meant he could observe his son while sitting with his wife.

Today was a particularly bad day. Five or so civilian children were chasing the six-year old Naruto. Along with them were two genin and chuunin. Naruto may have been really fast, but he wasn’t fast enough to run away from all of them. One of the genin and chuunin held him down, while the others attacked him with their fists. Minato tried the best he could to tell Naruto to fight back, but he couldn’t do it from where he was.

His eyes widened as one of the ninja took out a kunai. As the ninja brought it down, Minato closed his eyes and yelled out, “NARUTO!”

Naruto’s day wasn’t exactly going well. A trip to the hospital would be necessary after the beating he was receiving. But still, he was used to it, at least until he saw the kunai. As it rushed at him, his mind shut down.

Naruto found himself in a sewer. Moving around, he found a cage with a malicious aura coming from it. But from his right, he could feel warmth.

Looking that way, he saw a blond man standing with a look of concern that quickly gave way to wonder. Naruto couldn’t hold back the laugh that bubbled from his chest. “You look like someone mashed me and the Fourth Hokage together to create a new person.”

To his surprise, the man suddenly laughed loudly. Running over to him, he picked Naruto up and ruffled his hair. “I am the Fourth Hokage, Naruto.”

“Y-y-you are the Fourth Hokage?”

The man laughed once more. “Yeah, but you can just call me dad.”

“WHAT?!”

While Minato explained everything to Naruto, no time passed in the outside world.

“Uh, hang on, what’s that fluffy guy so pissed off about? What’s he doin’ here?”

“Who you callin’ fluffy, you insolent pup?!”

“And why does he have so many tails- Oh.”

Minato waited a bit, seeing how Naruto would take it.

“Is he dressed up as the Nine Tailed Fox? Man,” he said, looking at the fox, “You’d get even more beaten up than I do on my birthday.”

Minato shivered with anger at the citizens. They were harming _his son_ , the _jailer_ of the Nine-Tailed Fox, who wasn’t even responsible for the incident!

“Naruto, I think that first, we should take care of the people attacking you.”

“Okay, _dad_ ”, he said, trying out the word for the first time. He found that he liked it. Naruto tried to get out of his mind, but Minato stopped him. “Let me”, he offered. Naruto grinned as he sat back down. Minato gave one right back as he spread his soul through Naruto’s body.

Minato looked through human eyes after a long time. He quickly got his wonder under control. There was a kunai to block.

Minato grabbed the wrist of the ninja attacking him and threw him into a wall. The others ran away with varying degrees of reluctance. Then he slipped back in.

“All done”, he said. Naruto was gaping at him. “Wow! That was like a totally, super-duper awesome move! Can I do that someday too?”

“Well, you’d have to attend the Academy and train hard.”

“Yeah, but old man Hokage said that I need to be older to attend.”

“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to teach you a thing or two, would it?”

Naruto thought a bit. Then in typical Naruto fashion, he asked, “Why would it hurt?”

Minato was surprised that the boy hadn’t asked him how he was there.

“Aren’t you curious how I’m here?”

“Hmm. How are you here?”

Minato marveled at how similar Naruto was to Obito. The same overwhelming curiosity, along with the same confusing disinterest.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older. In fact, I think I’ll wait until Lord Hokage or Jiraiya sensei tells you.”

“Aw!”

The Nine tailed fox considered all this beneath him. He contemplated blowing a cloud of fire and sleeping, when he felt a tug on one of his tails. He shook it angrily, sending Naruto flying. Naruto hit the wall and disappeared.

Seeing that he was back in the real world, Naruto just shrugged and walked over to Ichiraku. He was in the mood for some ramen.

In a different part of the village, a raven-haired boy was wandering about with his older brother. He asked, “Hey, Itachi, why are there no more ninja shops in this place? I can just see vegetables and fruits.”

“That’s because this is a primarily civilian area. The shinobi shops are nearer to the Hokage office and the gates, and near the clan buildings. This is where the non-shinobi citizens of Konoha live.”

“Can we explore?”, asked little Sasuke excitedly. Itachi smiled at him sadly.

“You can go, but I need to get ready for my mission. Just be home fast.”

“Aw!”

Itachi smiled. “Come here, Sasuke.” Little Sasuke waddled over to Itachi, only to be poked in the forehead. “Sorry Sasuke. Some other time, okay?”

Sasuke pouted, but then he ran off into the market. Itachi smiled and flashed away.

This would be the perfect time to share some trivia about these civilian shops. The civilians all wanted to be in the good books of the major clans, so they had two different lines. One was for the other civilians and unimportant ninja. The other was supposedly for special purchases, let’s say, if a person wants to buy only mushrooms, but everybody knew that it was for the clan members. The civilians did all they could to suck up without being overly blatant about it.

Sasuke normally came here with his father, and so, he had gotten into a habit of entering these lines. As such, he had no idea that he wasn’t officially allowed in the line.

He saw a shop selling vegetables and entered it. Suddenly, someone from beside him poked him.

“Hey! Who do you think you are? This line isn’t for all you clan members! It’s for tomatoes!”

The voice belonged to a very loud pinkette who looked to be about his age. Sasuke filed away in his head that she was kind of pretty. But at the moment, he had bigger concerns. His life, for example.

“I, uh, like tomatoes?” Fun fact, he didn’t. All other Uchiha he knew loved tomatoes, but not Sasuke.

“That doesn’t cut it! You gonna buy them, clan boy?!”

Sasuke decided that he had no choice. “Yes. I’ll take two dozen tomatoes, please.”

On taking the tomatoes, Sasuke promptly put one in his mouth. The girl looked expectantly at him.

“It’s good.”

“Of course it’s good, clan boy! It’s from the family farm!”

“Mmmpgh. Mpgh mmppgh!” Sasuke intentionally mumbled with food in his mouth, not knowing what to say to keep himself alive, and preferably uninjured.

The girl put her elbows on the table, getting comfy. “Tell me your name, or I’ll keep calling you clan boy.”

Sasuke blinked nervously. “It’s Sasuke Uchiha.”

The girl’s tone may have been mocking as she said, “Oooh! Fancy clan boy, huh?” She leaned in close to his face until he had nowhere to look but her eyes. Her, green, scary eyes.

“Soo, Saasgaay,” she said, stretching out his name experimentally, “are you scared of me?”

The honest answer was yes. The only one he could compare Sakura to was the creepy lady who sometimes chased him with snakes, to “play”, as she called it.

But that wasn’t an option as a clan heir, so he answered, “Maybe?”

The girl’s eyes lit up with maniacal glee. She was just a bit taller than him, and she used it to her full advantage. “So the Uchiha clan head’s kid is scared of little old me?”

Suddenly, a woman grabbed the girl’s shoulder and dragged her back. She moved forward and bowed.

“Welcome, Lord Uchiha. What can we do for you?”

Sasuke was a little taken aback as he was addressed like an adult. He mumbled, “Uh, nothing, ma’am, I was just roaming about.” He tried to make as much distance between himself and the shop as possible.

Sakura was annoyed at her mother. Why did she behave so strangely when clansmen came? Why did she make her go to the backyard whenever clansmen came? And most importantly, why did the clansmen _always_ buy tomatoes?

Sakura was dragged into the house and shoved against the wall. Her mother screeched at her, “What do you think you were doing? Do you not know that they could kill you anytime they want? They are more important, Sakura! Remember that. They could kill you publicly, in front of everybody, and they wouldn’t be punished!”

Her mom sat on her knees and hugged her close. “I love you, Sakura. Don’t ever do that. Always be as polite as you can to shinobi. Never say no to them, because they can do much worse to you if they want.”

Sakura’s father chose that moment to wander in, drunk, a bottle in hand.

“What’s she done this time, eh?”

Sakura’s mother had wide, scared eyes. She pushed Sakura behind her as she tried to downplay the incident.

“Oh, nothing much. She was just having a bit of fun with a clan kid.”

“Which clan?”

Her mom did not reply.

“Which clan, you bitch?! Which clan was it?!” yelled her father as he hurled Sakura’s mother into a wall.

“The Uchiha”, her mother moaned out piteously. Her father’s eyes widened in rage as he grabbed Sakura and forced her into an empty room. He grabbed Sakura by the neck and lifted her up. Sakura was, at the time, wearing just a t-shirt and shorts. Her father was quick to rip those off. He tried to break the bottle he was holding several times on Sakura’s stomach. Failing to do so, he brought it up hard between her legs. She fell down, screaming in pain.

Kizashi Haruno, her father, threw the bottle down onto her right arm, where it shattered. He then walked out, leaving Sakura bleeding on the floor.

Sakura’s mother crawled over slowly. She helped Sakura get dressed, and hugged her close. She bandaged Sakura’s wounds and laid her on the bed. Then she went out, back to the shop.

After a hearty meal at Ichiraku Ramen, Naruto went home and tried to enter his mind again. He failed, but at least it made him sleepy. Naruto went to bed, and instead of dreams about being the lord of the ramen village, he dreamed about a family. He was there, as was his father. Not knowing what his mother looked like, he imagined his dad with longer hair and bigger breasts.


	2. SHURIKEN PRODIGY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke gets training from Itachi, and discovers his prowess at shurikenjutsu. The Hokage learns about Minato. Sakura thinks.

Sasuke was an idiot. There was no other explanation for it. Why else would he announce, in front of his parents, that he had met a girl, a civilian girl, who scared him?

Mikoto, his mom, was jumping up and down with joy, screaming something to the effect, “I’m going to have grandchildren!” Fugaku was pacing up and down, contemplating the murder of the entire Haruno family. Itachi had been smiling until a minute ago, when a girl, possibly Izumi, had called him out. They had yet to return.

Fugaku looked at Sasuke sharply. “Did this girl understand that you were scared?”

Sasuke thought back to her creepy face. Then he imagined his father’s reaction.

“Nope”, Sasuke shook his head.

Fugaku let out a breath. “Good. But just to be safe, I’ll go with you tomorrow to that same shop. Now go. Don’t you have your shuriken training?”

“Dad, that’s Itachi’s. I’m not even in the academy!”

“Hmm. That’s still no excuse. You should learn these things as soon as possible.”

“But dad, you said you’d teach me today-”

Fugaku absentmindedly waved his hand. “Okay, okay. Just go to the clan library. They have tons of shurikenjutsu scrolls there.”

Sasuke’s face fell. He had been hoping that his father would start teaching him, but no, his father didn’t have time for that.

Seeing Sasuke’s dejected expression, his mother walked over to him and picked him up, despite his many protests.

“Come on, Sasuke. I’ll teach you some shurikenjutsu.” Sasuke immediately stopped moving about and smiled.

Sasuke reached the Uchiha training ground within a few minutes, stumbling upon an incredibly disconcerting sight.

Itachi had a kunai in his hand. He had cut a gash in his arm, and now was holding it out to Izumi, whose hands glowed with a visible green chakra.

For any mother, seeing her ten-year-old son cutting himself with a sharp blade is enough to make her crazier than normal. For a shinobi mother, crazier than normal is very crazy indeed.

Running over to Itachi, Mikoto screamed, “What the hell are you doing?!”

Proving the longtime hypothesis that all ANBU are scared of their moms.

Itachi flinched back. Then he rubbed the back of his head. “I was just, uh, helping her learn medical ninjutsu.”

Mikoto blinked twice. Then she screamed again. “When did _you_ learn medical ninjutsu?!”

“I don’t. She’s the one learning it. I’m just the subject.”

This time, Mikoto’s anger was directed at Izumi, who flinched away from her gaze. “Why does this girl need _you_ as a subject?! Why doesn’t she use fish?!” Mikoto’s sharingan whirred into life, out of her control.

Izumi stepped back, whimpering from the intent to severely harm that Mikoto radiated. She felt her heart thrumming loudly. She was sweating, her head was feeling faint, and _she was going to fall_ -

Itachi put his hand on her shoulder and stepped in front of her, staring down his mother with his own sharingan. Unlike his mother, though, his eyes were calm and protective, like the way people stare down drunk men to make them settle down. He wasn’t expecting a genjutsu.

Seeing a world of red and black appear around him, Itachi frowned.

“This is a mangekyo technique.”

Mikoto snorted.

“This isn’t the Tsukuyomi. The Uchiha have the default ability to enter into other’s mindscapes. You should know that, Itachi. You’ve read almost every scroll in the Uchiha library.”

“My mindscape does not look like this, mother.”

“Really? Have you checked your entire mindscape? ANBUs train to enter their mindscapes at will, but one’s mindscape is huge, Itachi. The part you enter into isn’t necessarily the part I’ll enter through, y’know.”

Itachi moved to remove her from his mind.

“Wait! I just need to ask, are you two dating? If not, then I’m going to apologize.”

Itachi quirked an eyebrow. “That seems a bit, counter-intuitive.”

Mikoto smirked. “I have to play the part of the evil mother in law, don’t I?”

Itachi reflexively shoved her out of his head.

Mikoto smiled widely, a drastic change from her earlier expression. “I’m leaving Sasuke here, okay, Itachi? You two could teach him some shurikenjutsu.”

Itachi nodded. Izumi stuttered out, “Y-Yes of course, ma’am”, and immediately looked embarrassed.

Sasuke ran over to Itachi, who sighed as he grabbed a shuriken from his pocket. The next few hours were, to say the least, troublesome, but entertaining.

“Sasuke, don’t! Aim it that way, not at me! No, wait- Oh, thanks Itachi.”

“Oh, wow, nice one, Sasuke. Next time warn me before giving me a haircut.”

“No! Sasuke, give that back, that’s an explosive tag!”

“Wait, where did my eyebrows go?”

But by the end of it, Itachi was in awe. Sasuke had picked up shurikenjutsu faster than he had. Sasuke really was going to make waves in the world.

Itachi was drawn out of his thoughts as Sasuke perfectly countered three of Izumi’s shuriken with one of his own. His eyes widened even more as he saw the metal string attached to the shuriken, the other end somewhere in Sasuke’s pocket. The string dragged out another shuriken with it.

The first shuriken lodged itself in the ground, and the other one swung directly towards Izumi.

Itachi cut the string with a well-aimed shuriken, causing Sasuke’s projectile to go over Izumi’s head and lodge itself in a tree. She gave him a grateful look. For some reason, that made warmth go straight to his stomach.

Sasuke looked to his brother eagerly. Not to disappoint, Itachi grabbed a scroll from his backpack and unsealed two Fūma shuriken.

After two more hours, Itachi was sure that Sasuke was going to be a projectile master when he grew up. He himself hadn’t been that good at Sasuke’s age, and he was, in popular opinion, a prodigy. Sasuke could even keep up with Izumi easily, and she was three years older than him.

Watching Sasuke engage Izumi in another shuriken battle, Itachi couldn’t help but marvel at how different his style was from Sasuke, and yet how they both had the distinct Uchiha style.

The Uchiha style was based on speed and power, and was quite flashy. It involved things like deflecting a shuriken with another to change it’s direction. It was different from the standard style, involving patterns that were supposed to be impossible to dodge, as dodging one would lead into the path of another. In that aspect, Itachi and Sasuke were remarkably similar.

However, Itachi’s moves tended to be simple. Not straightforward by any means, but simple. He didn’t have any long-term plans. For him, one move was two or three throws. That could be eight to twenty-four shuriken, but it was usually over in a few seconds.

Sasuke was completely different in that regard. A single move of his would take minutes, his plan working from the very beginning. Itachi had seen him engage Izumi in a battle for fifteen minutes and step back, for Izumi to hit herself with Sasuke’s shuriken.

Thinking about it, the plan had been completely ingenious. Sasuke had left a loose shinobi wire attached to his shuriken, which he had embedded in a tree. Throughout the battle, he had used shuriken, from several feet away, to wrap the wire around Izumi’s arm loosely. Using more shuriken, he had tightened the wire up to two feet from her hand. The moment she lifted her arm to throw a shuriken, Sasuke threw his own to make the wire go absolutely taut, throwing off her aim and pulling the shuriken stuck behind her on the tree free and sending it towards her.

If Itachi hadn’t pulled her towards him, landing in a tangle of limbs, she would have been injured.

Izumi sent Itachi a pained look as she was defeated yet again, a shuriken caught in her hair, millimeters away from her neck. She stomped over to him, gesturing that she couldn’t go on, muttering something about a “mirror image of his brother”.

Itachi sighed. So far, he had mostly been giving demonstrations and pointers, but it wouldn’t do for Sasuke to get complacent. Which he definitely was getting, judging by the fact that he stuck out his tongue at Izumi while she wasn’t looking, as if trying to say, “my brother, not yours.”

Sasuke appeared to think a bit before settling into a stance. He threw two shuriken right off the bat.

Itachi could clearly see the wire attached to the shuriken. Knowing that it could be supposed to go in any direction, he settled on throwing a single shuriken that spun in such a way that both strings were entangle. He shot another one, with a magnetic wire attached, that cut through Sasuke’s string and went on to slice off his pocket containing the shuriken. Grabbing eight shuriken, Itachi threw them skyward at an angle, causing them to collide and for all of them to go straight down to Sasuke. He simultaneously tugged the magnetic string back, causing the shuriken to divert from their course towards Sasuke’s head to the string.

Itachi told him, “Sasuke, truly being stronger than another person is not when you can defeat or kill them, but when you can defeat them without ever having the chance of them getting hurt.” Then he asked Sasuke to run back home, which he did.

Izumi looked to Itachi. “Your mother is scary.” But Itachi could see that she was hurt by his mother’s reaction. He had no idea what to do, that is, until she gave him a hug. He patted her awkwardly on the head, feeling flustered.

“Want some dango?”

She smiled gratefully. “Sure.”

Sakura was still on her bed, thinking about what she had done to deserve this. No six-year-old should have to deal with a drunk father.

It had started two years ago. She was almost five years old, and liked to play with rubber kunai and shuriken. She had been in the living room, fighting against an imaginary opponent, when her father had entered. Unknown to her, he had just been ejected from the shinobi corps for being drunk during a mission and attempting to force himself upon a teammate. An Uchiha teammate. She had promptly pinned him to a wall with shuriken, and he had been found like that.

When her father had entered that night, drunk, and seen her playing with shuriken, he had knocked those out of her hand, and beaten her.

He had apologized profusely the next morning, but it happened again a week later. There were more and more beatings, and less and less apologies.

Sakura had resigned herself to her fate. She had wanted, from childhood, to become a ninja. If she had succeeded, she would not have to deal with her father. But there wasn’t any hope for that now.

Sakura knew she would have to go without dinner that night. She quietly went to sleep. Her dreams were filled with a wine bottle using her fathers body to attack her.

The next morning came, and Naruto tried to enter his mindscape again, and failed. He set about making himself breakfast, which happened to be dry ramen noodles (he was out of miso) in milk. He had just let out a burp after eating, when there was a knock on the door.

Knowing that it had to be the Hokage, Naruto opened the door and bounced onto the man.

“Hey old man! What are you doing here?”

The Hokage gave Naruto a mock glare for calling him old. “Nothing. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

Naruto stepped back to allow the Hokage to walk in, and spoke excitedly. “Old man, I just found out that my dad was the Fourth Hokage! How cool is that?”

Anyone else would have shown surprise, and given away that he had known this all along, but not the Hokage. He feigned an interested face.

“Are you sure that you aren’t just making this up? Do you have any proof, Naruto? I can’t just announce something like that without proof.”

The Third Hokage was quite surprised upon hearing the entire story of what had happened the day before. He cursed in his head.

_Minato, only you can trouble me from across the border of death._

“Naruto, look, I believe you, but others won’t. So, don’t parade this information, or they will think you’re a liar. You don’t want that, do you? Let it be our secret, okay?”

Naruto nodded vigorously, with the look of a person being given a top-secret mission.

“Of course, old man! You can count on me. Believe it!”


	3. TRAINING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke trains. Naruto trains.

It had been almost a year since Naruto had first met his father, and they had had many more meetings before his father actually started training him in earnest. No, the training had not been some cool new jutsu. It hadn’t been any taijutsu kata. It hadn’t been any chakra exercise. Hell, he hadn’t even learnt to enter his mindscape at will, and most of his time was spent there!

No, Naruto was being taught the art of sealing jutsu, or fūinjutsu.

When it was first explained to Naruto, he had found it cool. When he had started learning it, it was horrible. Worse was the fact that his expectations had been built up for two months, while his father taught him mathematics and the physical sciences, which were apparently necessary for fūinjutsu. 

People say that fūinjutsu requires impeccable handwriting. It does not. They just require the variables to be the same. A variable could be a squiggle, but that squiggle had to be reproduced perfectly.

Fūinjutsu required math, and it required logic. After being taught the basic rules, Minato had asked Naruto to create a seal to exchange two objects of his choosing. Trying really hard, Naruto had made one, but due to two fundamental errors, he had failed.

He had written, *CHAIR A*= *TABLE B*; <SEAL ACTIVATE> IF ELEMENT “CHAKRA” IS IN CONTACT.

He had forgotten to put CHAIR and TABLE in quotes, leaving A and B out of quotes. It was a childish mistake, because his seal would continue shifting between the two forms as long as chakra was applied. He had not understood that in this case, the two sides would remain CHAIR A and TABLE B, whereas, on adding the quotes, it would shift from CHAIR A to TABLE A, and from TABLE B to CHAIR B, and not shift anymore, since the formula did not deal with TABLE A and CHAIR B.

His second mistake was not specifying a variable after CHAKRA. Natural energy is present in the air, so Naruto had to deal with a constantly changing table and chair, until the seal deteriorated.

After several other mishaps, one where Naruto had accidentally written SEAL in quotes, and not inside triangular brackets, and had changed both the table and the chair into seals (the animal), Naruto could now say that he knew fūinjutsu. He had not mastered it by any means, but he was good at it. He knew how to apply seals without writing them down, though he had to write them down the first few times he used them. His father was even teaching him a new sealing language, called java. He had even become a, well, not friend, but close acquaintance of the guy apart from his dad in his head. His name was Kurama, though he had gotten mad at his dad for telling it to Naruto.

Naruto was seven years old, and would be going to the Academy from the next year. On his father’s advice, he had begun chakra control and physical training, with techniques from the library. Very soon, he had begun putting his own twists on the techniques.

Upon finishing the leaf sticking exercise, Naruto had started trying to attract the leaves from an inch away. Then even farther. Upon reaching the distance of two feet, Naruto started trying to suspend it in midair, between his palm and the ground. He could make it wobble in the air for around half a minute now.

Another exercise was the pebble floating exercise, which involved pushing up and holding a pebble above your palm with only chakra. Naruto first mastered it by making a column of chakra on his palm. Then, he limited the column area to the exact same area as the pebble had. Condensing his chakra in that way, he could actually see his chakra! It was faint, but the more chakra he condensed into a single column, the denser it became. Naruto also managed to balance the pebble on a senbon shape of chakra. He could maintain the column of chakra indefinitely. It was a nice accomplishment.

He had refused to give up his orange jumpsuit, despite many attempts of coaxing, and even threats, from Kurama.

Naruto looked at the wall clock. It was almost six in the evening. Naruto sat down and closed his eyes.

He was irked that he could not get into his own mindscape on his own. After a few minutes, he felt a path open into his head. Delving in, he found himself with his dad and Kurama.

He was immediately excited. “Dad, are you finally gonna teach me an awesome, kickass jutsu!?”

Minato smiled indulgently. “I might, but right now, I have a fun chakra control exercise for you.”

Naruto pouted. “But I have excellent chakra control!”

Minato’s smile turned into a frown. “Have I not taught you about what it means to master something? Never be satisfied with your current level of power. You have excellent chakra control, but you aren’t even close to mastering it.”

Naruto was silent. Then he asked, “Is it a cool chakra control exercise?”

Minato smiled again. “Of course it is. Do you have water balloons?”

Life was going well for Sasuke. His parents had gone to visit the Haruno, where the pinkette acted strangely subdued, calling them all sir. His father had been satisfied and gone back.

When his parents had been told about his prowess in shuriken, they had assumed that Itachi was just putting in a good word for his brother. Fugaku had brought a nameless Uchiha who had awakened the Sharingan, and asked him to test Sasuke’s shurikenjutsu.

The difficulty in fighting against the sharingan was that it could see everything Sasuke did. No shinobi wire would go unnoticed. No string would go unseen. The only way was…

To render it obsolete.

Now, every single shuriken Sasuke threw had a wire or string attached to it. It was all in plain sight, therefore, the Sharingan wouldn’t matter. Only a few of all the shuriken were part of Sasuke’s plan. He laid a trap within a trap, creating a pattern of wires that would close in on his opponent, and were, through the use of a chandelier, attached to two Fūma shuriken, which were again attached to the original shuriken.

Seeing the wire closing in, Sasuke’s opponent had cockily cut it, assuming that he had foiled Sasuke’s plans. Along with the string, the now supportless chandelier fell where his opponent had been standing. The unnamed Uchiha moved out of the way, only for the two Fūma shuriken to be pulled by the momentum of the chandelier and wrap him with wire.

Sasuke had beaten an Uchiha with a grown Sharingan, and he had done it without hurting him or requiring Itachi to stop his shuriken before they hit the mark. That year, his father paid equal attention to him and Itachi. Throughout the year, Itachi had taken an active role in training his shurikenjutsu, and _only_ his shurikenjutsu. Fugaku had ordered Itachi explicitly that he was to teach Sasuke everything he could in shurikenjutsu, and nothing more.

Sasuke’s chakra affinity had been tested. He had an extraordinarily strong affinity to lightning. His father had immediately ordered a three-man team of Uchiha to go to the borders of Cloud, and glean as many lightning jutsu as they could in a week.

Out of them, Sasuke’s least favorite was Lightning Style: Overdrive. While in overdrive mode, Sasuke’s mental capacities were speeded up, but his body appeared awfully slow to him. It was highly disconcerting, and messed with his physical skills while not using it. He kept it in reserve. His favorite was the Lightning Ball jutsu, and he often used it in conjunction with shuriken

On Sasuke’s insistence, his father had taught him the Great Fireball Jutsu. Guiding him through the process multiple times, it had hardly taken Sasuke two days to master the jutsu.

Most people mistook the ability to perform elemental techniques with the ability to perform nature transformation. That was utterly wrong. People not having mastered nature transformation had to use hand seals, like Tiger for Fire style jutsu, or Snake for lightning style jutsu. People who had mastered nature transformation did not have to use the hand seals for changing the chakra nature.

Sasuke had followed the rules for the Great Fireball, replacing the Tiger seal with Snake. A flash had blinded him, but when he opened his eyes, there was nothing different with the landscape.

The next week, Sasuke’s aim deteriorated terribly, until he realized that he had accidentally magnetized his shuriken. He kept a few of them with him, because they did come in handy.

Sasuke was happy. His father no longer ignored him. He was now the son of the clan head, not the brother of the clan heir.

But the training was incredibly hard. He had beaten Itachi several times in a shurikenjutsu battle, but lost more times. Itachi didn’t use his Sharingan in those battles, but Sasuke hadn’t even awakened his eye.

Every day, Sasuke would wake up. He would have a bath, then work on his assorted taijutsu. After working up a sweat, he would blindfold himself and fight a member of the clan, people whom Sasuke’s father called fodder, in any way he could, including ninjutsu and taijutsu. For a clan that was said to be a master of genjutsu, the Uchiha had a very small reservoir of genjutsu, and all of them used the Sharingan.

Then, he would have his meal. After resting for a while, he would work on his shurikenjutsu with his brother, and if he wasn’t free, with his father. His father had to use the Sharingan to defeat Sasuke, but was quite a challenge without it.

After lunch, Sasuke would work on his studies, after which he was free to study whatever he wanted. Most of the time, Sasuke would go out of the compound, go to the river, and practice his lightning style ninjutsu there. Sometimes, a blond kid, Naruto, would also be there, working diligently on some chakra exercise that he’d cooked up himself.

Sasuke had seen Naruto a lot over there, but had actually gotten to know him by accident. When Sasuke had released a lightning ball, Naruto had accidentally changed the grass into water. The lightning ball hit the water, and what happened next is anyone’s guess.

Sasuke had apologized profusely, going against every rule in the clan training he had received. Thankfully, the blond hadn’t been injured (Sasuke took that as a cue to work much harder). He had forgiven Sasuke in exchange for one extra-large miso ramen with pork and assorted vegetables. Although, the shopkeeper had refused to take money, so Sasuke hadn’t really done anything, but the blond seemed to consider the debt paid.

In the evening, Sasuke would be made to “interact” with a purple haired woman whose snakes liked to “play” a little too much.

The woman liked dango a lot, and had tried to drag Itachi to a dango shop. Something about knowing him since he was in nappies. Izumi hadn’t protested, but she’d gone with them, and spent several hours draped over Itachi in a clear display of possessiveness. Instead of backing of, the woman proceeded to call Izumi out in front of Itachi, who had been trying to stay out of there passive-aggressive argument by paying attention to his dango.

Poor brother.

On Sundays, Fugaku would have special sessions with Sasuke, where they would train in various disciplines, not previously decided, like battle scenarios, chakra training, and even shunshin training. Sometimes his father would hold mock political meetings. These sessions were by far his favorite. Little did he know what that session would entail today.

Itachi and Fugaku were inside the room where these lessons were held, waiting for Sasuke. They were having a hushed argument.

“Father, that is the worst possible method for what you have in mind. He’ll get it soon. It’s in his blood.”

“Itachi, if he learns it now, it’ll be much better for him.”

“But father-”, Itachi stopped as Sasuke entered. Fugaku immediately went into character for what he had in mind.

“Sit down, Sasuke.”

Sasuke took a seat, confused at the uncharacteristically harsh look on his father’s face.

“You have disappointed me, Sasuke.”

Sasuke started, looking upwards into his father’s eyes.

“You are weak. You cannot even hold a candle to a mediocre Uchiha.”

Sasuke was too shocked to say anything.

“Your techniques require more power, your taijutsu is ridiculously slow, and the only place where you have even the smallest bit of potential is playing with your blades.”

A single tear came in the corner of Sasuke’s eye.

“You don’t even have the temperament to be an Uchiha. You are too polite, and let people walk right over you.”

Sasuke protested, “But Itachi is even more polite than me!”

“Is he?”

“Yes! He always listens to you, and helps old women cross the streets with groceries!”

“Is that so, Itachi?”

Itachi played the part he had been given remarkably. He glared hatefully at Sasuke, causing his eyes to become wetter. Then he lowered his head in deference.

Fugaku glared. “Then you shouldn’t be an Uchiha either.”

Sasuke saw Fugaku reach under his robe and bring out a kunai. He saw him move the kunai to Itachi, whose eyes widened. What was happening? Why was it happening? Sasuke just wanted it to stop!

Sasuke found himself holding his father’s wrist tightly. Everything seemed clearer to him. More colorful. He could see a blue essence in his brother and father. Everything was brighter too. Sasuke could clearly see Fugaku’s face slowly blossoming into a grin, and Itachi smiling openly. He saw them give each other a high-five. Looking at his confused face, Fugaku brought out a mirror.

Sasuke looked at himself in the mirror, and immediately noticed his eyes. They had the telltale pattern of a one tomoe Sharingan.

Sasuke looked around him everywhere in awe. The awe quickly turned to fear as he pawed at his eyes.

“How do I turn them off?!”

Sasuke was hyperventilating when Itachi rose up and gave him a sharp poke in the forehead. Sasuke made a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, and his Sharingan turned off.

Fugaku cleared his throat.

“I assume it was obvious that this was all an act to awaken your sharingan?”

Itachi looked at him apologetically. “I’m sorry Sasuke, but it worked, didn’t it?”

Fugaku looked at Itachi with a mock glare. “You really are too polite.”

“Diplomacy”, Itachi quipped.

Sasuke smiled as Mikoto entered with tomatoes and dango. This was what a family should be like.


End file.
